Afternoon Tea 12.9.2020 - Dumping

When you need to get rid of something, you don't care who it hurts.

December 09, 2020

New York’s pension fund is dumping fossil fuels, renters are dumping San Francisco, the NYPD is dumping the head of its Workplace Discrimination Office, and Huawei reminded us all why we dumped them. It’s Wednesday, December 9th 2020, and this is the Tea.

 Huawei tested AI software that could recognize Uighur minorities, triggering a “Uighur alarm” (Washington Post) Trump dunking Huawei is a rare example of that blinking 12:00 on a VCR (don’t ask kids, don’t ask) being right twice a day.

New York State Just Set a New Standard for Fossil Fuel Divestment (Gizmodo - Earther) Yesterday, the NYS Comptroller committed to ensuring the NYS pension fund (3rd largest in the USA, behind CA & TX) is fully divested from Fossil Fuels by 2025. Hey, the rest of the country, hop to it. Let’s get these investments off out of the retirement portfolios of teachers, cops, sanitation workers, fire fighters, and public employees at large.

San Francisco’s 35% Plunge in Rents Shows the Effects of Tech Fleeing City (Bloomberg) In poker as in life, it’s the swings that’ll kill ya. My advice ain’t worth shit, but I would definitely hold off on making any real estate purchases in the next three months, at least until after the inauguration. There is a lot of noise in a lot of these pricing spaces, overpayment is still very possible due to information asymmetry.

Head of NYPD’s Workplace Discrimination Office relieved of command for racist comments made in online forum (ABC7) The guy who ran the NYPD’s workplace discrimination department made a bunch of intolerant & pig-headed comments under the pseudonym “Clouseau.” For people under the age of 50, Inspector Clouseau was the antagonist of the Pink Panther, a cartoon so old that it thinks QAnon is real.

India Farmers Block Railway Tracks, Roads In National Action Against New Laws (Barron’s) Remember how I told you that the Indian farmers weren’t going to back down? Let’s check on them:

Yes, that’s a Sikh taking a water cannon to the chest, full force. And it failing to move him. Seems like the Indian government has things under control then.

Moscow’s facial recognition system can be hijacked for $200 (The Verge) When tech capabilities outpace the morality required to use them, things go awry:

A digital rights activist in Moscow was able to purchase access to the city’s extensive facial recognition system for just 16,000 rubles (approximately $200), as reported by the Thomson Reuters Foundation. After seeing ads for the service on Telegram, Anna Kuznetsova transferred the money along with a picture of herself to a seller. Two days later, she received an extensive report of her movements over the previous month, apparently pulled directly from the police system.

Sir Patrick Stewart Still in Therapy at 80 (Screen Binge) The best of us never stop improving, never stop searching for answers, and never stop healing.

Frustrated landlords turning to illegal ‘self-help’ evictions (The Buffalo News) About as dastardly as it sounds. Just remember, with many unemployment benefits ending the day after Christmas, stories like this are going to become very familiar.

How I Changed My Mind (The Beinart Notebook) How a Clinton/Biden era neoliberal became a progressive. Not like, a random person, Peter was the managing editor at The New Republic, and was also a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign “We can’t wait to free the shit out of you” Relations. This type of journey should be rewarded.

State media warning labels can counteract the effects of foreign misinformation (Misinformation Review - Harvard Kennedy School) Nutrition labels keep companies from lying to you about what’s in your dinner, and state media warning labels can keep countries from lying to you about what’s in your evening news.

Song of the Tea: Prismo occupies a very weird niche in the Future Bass & EDM Hype universe. Take his strength and vanquish this year’s enemies once and for all.

The snow falls, the sky mists to gray, and the chills grow. Huddle together, we’ll get through this.

Yours,T